Quality content is subjective. Some people prefer a beginner-level summary, while others seek in-depth expert insights. Quality content surpasses existing information, making it useful, memorable, and shareable.
As SEOs, we typically focus on topics people are searching for. This makes the content useful, but many top-ranking sites often say the same things, making it seem like you’re reading repetitive information.
There are buzzwords like 10x content or skyscraper content, but the goal is simply to create something better than what currently exists.
When writing new content, you have the advantage of seeing what ranks and using that as a benchmark to exceed.
Let’s explore how to achieve this.
How to Create Quality Content
Creating quality content is part science and part art, requiring hard work and expertise.
SEOs have access to vast amounts of data, allowing us to see:
- What people search for through keyword research.
- What top content ranks for.
- What existing content discusses.
Many people search for quick and easy-to-read basic information. Thus, organized, simplified, and scannable content is valuable.
While SEO content aims to rank well, it also provides useful introductions to topics for users.
The drawback is that in many cases, expertise is only being feigned.
To create quality content, genuine expertise is necessary.
You can differentiate your content by:
- Sharing your experiences, stories, and insights.
- Including data exclusive to you.
- Offering a unique perspective or opinion.
Top-ranking pages often have been refined over time and may have acquired powerful links, making them tough to surpass.
To beat such content, extraordinary effort and a collaborative team might be required:
- An SEO expert for research.
- A skilled writer and storyteller.
- An expert for unique insights.
- An editor to correct mistakes.
Each team member contributes essential skills to create quality content.
Creating high-quality content requires more effort than many companies are willing to invest. Initial results can help secure the necessary resources to continue this work.
A common pitfall is viewing content creation as a one-off task instead of an ongoing process. Improving your content continuously can yield better results over time.
For instance, this is my second time writing this article. I originally wrote a piece on quality content in 2016, and my increased experience now allows me to provide deeper insights.
How to Measure Quality
Measuring quality is challenging due to its subjective nature. While metrics like word count and keyword density are often used, they are not always reliable indicators of quality.
There is no one-size-fits-all method to measure quality.
SEOs may look at:
- Rankings.
- Traffic.
- Links.
- Mentions.
- Social shares.
Businesses may measure:
- Conversions.
- Qualified leads.
- Revenue.
User satisfaction is another potential metric to consider.
Search engines strive to provide good results for diverse users with varying needs. They typically display a variety of content to serve different user intents.
Let’s review some of the guidance provided by search engines for creating content.
How Search Engines Think About Quality Content
Google has developed multiple algorithms to determine what content best serves users. They also offer substantial guidance on their criteria.
Terms commonly used by Google to describe quality content include:
- Expert.
- Authoritative.
- Trustworthy.
- Relevant.
- Useful, helpful.
- High-quality.
- Original.
- Comprehensive.
- Interesting.
- Insightful.
- Factual.
- Detailed.
- Engaging.
- Credible.
- Informative.
- Valuable.
- User-centric.
- Authentic.
Although most of these adjectives are subjective, they offer important insights into what search engines find valuable.
Google Webmaster Quality Guidelines
Google’s quality guidelines emphasize:
Basic Principles
- Make pages primarily for users, not search engines.
- Don’t deceive your users.
- Avoid tricks meant to boost search engine rankings.
- Think about what makes your website unique, valuable, or engaging.
Specific Guidelines
Avoid these tactics:
- Automatically generated content to manipulate rankings.
- Participating in link schemes.
- Creating pages with little or no original content.
- Cloaking.
- Sneaky redirects.
- Hidden text or links.
- Doorway pages.
- Scraped content.
- Affiliate programs without added value.
- Irrelevant keyword loading.
- Pages with malicious behavior.
- Abusing structured data markup.
- Sending automated queries to Google.
Follow good practices like:
- Monitoring for hacking and removing hacked content quickly.
- Preventing and removing user-generated spam.
Google on Creating Valuable Content
Google’s guidance on creating valuable content recommends that your website should be:
As you begin creating content, make sure your website is:
Useful and informative: Include essential details such as location, hours of operation, contact information, and more.
More valuable and useful than other sites: Provide more value or a unique perspective compared to other articles on the same topic.
Credible: Establish credibility with original research, citations, links, reviews, and testimonials.
High-quality: Ensure your content is unique, focus on providing a good user experience.
Engaging: Add visuals and ensure the content is free of errors. Engage visitors through updates, comment sections, or social media.
Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines
The Google Search Quality Ratings Guidelines offer key insights into quality:
4.1 Characteristics of High Quality Pages
High quality pages exist for various beneficial purposes, from providing information to making people laugh. Such pages should achieve their purpose well and include:
• High levels of Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-A-T).
• Descriptive or helpful titles.
• Satisfying information about the website and its creators.
• Positive reputations for both the website and the content creator.
4.2 A Satisfying Amount of High Quality Main Content
High-quality MC is critical in Page Quality rating. Creating this content requires significant time, effort, expertise, and talent/skill.
For each page, evaluate the MC before drawing a conclusion. Read, watch, examine, and test the content.
The purpose of the page determines what constitutes high-quality content. For instance, high-quality informational pages should be accurate and comprehensive, while high-quality humor should be entertaining.
How Does Google Define Helpful Content?
Google provides best practices and questions to consider regarding major algorithm updates such as Panda, Core, Product Review, and helpful content.
How Microsoft Bing Considers Content Quality
Microsoft Bing’s guidance breaks down content quality into three pillars:
- Authority: Can we trust this content?
- Utility: Is the content useful and sufficiently detailed?
- Presentation: Is the content well-presented and easy to find?
Final Thoughts
Creating quality content requires time, effort, resources, and expertise.
Surpassing competitors means more work, creativity, and knowledge. If you succeed, you’ll create a strong competitive edge that’s hard for others to overcome. Even if they do, with some effort, you might reclaim your position.
Keep striving and create something remarkable!
